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White-Tailed Eagle with heron (1 Viewer)

Duck_Pond

Professional Wildlife Photographer And Guide
Scotland
After reading that other thread with the croc on the menu... reminded me of Mull a few weeks ago...

Down here in the Midlands, grey herons are not to be messed with by any birds, and often put up flocks of others, when they fly over.

On Mull, it seems that they're on the menu, for white-tailed eagles.

I was sat at the top of a marsh watching for hen harriers when the geese went up suddenly. Seconds later, a WTE flew over my car and headed up stream. And moments after that had gone from sight, I spotted another WTE on the grass, some distance away, where the geese had fled from.

When it took off, a grey heron was hanging from its enormous talons, and it carried it off back to the nesting site further down the loch.

I guess that's why herons don't have such an air of confidence when you see them on Mull!
 

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Gosh! Wonderful pictures there Pete. It never occurred to me that herons would be a prey item! What a good meal they'd make for hungry chicks.

It'll be interesting to watch any change of behaviour in the herons over here, now there's WTE's being released in the east.
 
Hi Rob

Coming up your area (Glenrothes, Methil etc) in November can you give me an idea of what state the estuary is likely to be?
 
I wonder if there could be some useful mesopredator control effect from this type of predation? I suspect that herons are an often overlooked predator of eggs and chicks of waders - perhaps a few more apex predators such as WTEs could benefit things lower down the food chain!
 
I dont think they are over looked. In a Springwatch did nt a Heron clean out a Tern colony in Wales?


I wonder if there could be some useful mesopredator control effect from this type of predation? I suspect that herons are an often overlooked predator of eggs and chicks of waders - perhaps a few more apex predators such as WTEs could benefit things lower down the food chain!
 
Mink have been known to kill herons too, not that we want to encourage that particular species in the UK!
 
Mink have been known to kill herons too, not that we want to encourage that particular species in the UK!

But don't worry - WT Eagles kill mink!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2656.2008.01430.x/pdf

I dont think they are over looked. In a Springwatch did nt a Heron clean out a Tern colony in Wales?

I agree that the predatory activities of herons are well known to science and to many birdwatchers. However among the wider public, I hear a lot of concerns about buzzards predating lapwing chicks and not so much about herons, which I suspect could be more important predators at some larger wetland sites:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00861.x/pdf
 
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